Author Notes: This is a play on a classic: peas, prosciutto, cream and pasta. I make a pasta with jalapenos, cream and prosciutto, and so I built this sauce the same way but used peas instead of jalapenos. Fresh mint added at the end, along with the peas, gives the dish a light, springy flavor that pairs well with the cream, prosciutto and cheese. - lechef —lechef

Food52 Review: Although it may sound very rich, there are several details that keep this pasta sprightly and fresh, rather than heavy. First, lechef is not shy with the big flavors: 4 cloves of garlic, 4 shallots and a heap of diced prosciutto make the cream sauce sing, and the pop of crisp sugar snaps punctuates every bite. A fistful of parmesan gives the sauce body as well as a nutty tang. Make sure not to cook the peas for too long -- the key here is retaining just the right amount of crunch to offset the cream and starch. - A&M —The Editors

Serves 4

4 cloves garlic, minced

3tablespoons olive oil

1/4pound prosciutto shank, finely diced

4 shallots, minced

1 pint cream

1/2cup freshly grated parmesan

1/2pound fresh snap peas, whole, chopped

1/2cup fresh mint, chopped

salt and fresh ground pepper

3/4pound (3/4 box) pasta, farfalle or orechiette

In a heavy saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and cook the garlic for 2-3 minutes until just beginning to color.

Add the prosciutto and cook for an additional 3-4 minutes. I use whole prosciutto shanks because my butcher has them, but you can also ask for a 1/4 inch thick slice of prosciutto and chop that up instead. I think this works much better in pasta than thin slices.

Add the shallots and cook for 3-4 minutes to soften, and season with a pinch or two of salt and a turn or two of fresh black pepper.

Meanwhile, bring your pasta water to a boil, salt it, and add your pasta. You will want to time the pasta to be finished just as the sauce is finishing so that the cream doesn't sit long.

With about 3 minutes left on your pasta, add the peas and cook for 2 minutes. We want them to retain their crunch. With one minute remaining, add the cream and quickly bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Add the cheese, stir, and reduce the heat to low.

Drain the pasta, and toss with the sauce to coat. Sprinkle liberally with fresh mint, and serve with black pepper and extra Parmesan cheese. Enjoy!

Before anything, this is a fantastic recipe. I just made this dish for lunch over the weekend. Such an easy dish so rich in flavors!

Nothing beats fresh garlic! My only comment would be that I recommend to chop the garlic, rather than "mince" it ("mince" is finer, "chop" is bigger). Garlic has the tendency to turn brown and bitter very quickly. (That's because of its unusually low water content. And because you usually mince or thinly slice the cloves, those tiny bits are even more vulnerable to direct, dry heat.) So chop the garlic and watch it not to burn!

While I feel the fresh mint is a must in this dish, I feel the cream makes this dish a very unhealthy one. One of the reasons to avoid using cream is the high levels of cholesterol it contains, making this dish very high in calories.For that reason I substituted the cream for One can of Coconut milk (Chaokoh brand is the best I think). If you never cooked with Coconut milk before, it is rich and thick and more like cream than milk, and does not at all leaves an over powering coconut flavor. While coconut milk has high saturated fat levels, the unique fatty acids (medium-chain triglycerides) in coconut milk may aid weight loss, improve immune function, reduce heart disease risk and improve skin health. Coconut milk is highly nutritious when ingested, it is vegan and it is lactose free so it can be used as a milk substitute by those with lactose intolerance. It is a better healthier choice than cream which had wonderful result in this recipe. (Another vegan alternative to cream for all your soups, sauces, and sides is ChefSteps' Genius Roasted Onion Cream recipe on the Genius section on this site).

In my fridge I already had Pecorino Romano cheese, which is most often used on pasta dishes, so I decided to use it for this recipe. It has a distinctive aromatic, pleasantly sharp flavour which made a very flavoured sauces. One thing to mention is that Pecorino Romano has a very salty flavour so I didn't put 1/2cup but rather added a bit at a time making sure to taste until it was perfect.And perfect it was.

This is a fantastic recipe. I used pancetta and halved the cream. To make up for the missing half pint of cream, I added a ladleful of the pasta water. The mint and the snap peas cut beautifully through the richness of the sauce. A keeper

Made this tonight and it was beautiful and tasty! I used some local snap peas, mint and prosciutto. I made one big change and cut the cream to 1 cup (unintentionally! I swear. I read the recipe as 1 cup instead of 1 pint) but the pasta was still sufficiently creamy (disclaimer, I had just a touch less pasta than called for - because I was running out - about 280g instead of 340g (or 3/4 lbs). Looking forward to leftovers tomorrow.

My husband--the cook in our family--is away and your wonderful and relatively easy recipe really saved my bacon. It was so delicious that my son confirmed (2x): "You made this Mama? It's really good!" (I was not hurt) The small hints and asides about how to buy the prosciutto and how to time everything were so helpful. Thanks, lechef!

The perfect prosciutto for this would be La Quercia Crumble -- ground prosciutto totally ready to use and well priced for cooking. I agree that thinly sliced prosciutto would get rather lost in the mix.

Ground prosciutto would definitely work here, and would save you the chopping time. I usually go for a 1/4 inch dice on the prosciutto shanks I use, just because I prefer the intense flavor in a larger bite.

I have a question about the recipe "Pasta with Prosciutto, Snap Peas, Mint and Cream." Any suggestions for how I might modify this recipe if I (unfortunately) have to make it without the cream? Thanks in advance!